It augurs well that the rendra Modi government has laid a good deal of emphasis on the empowerment of the country’s northeastern region by harping on the fact that the region has a high potential to serve as a meaningful gateway to the whole of Southeast Asia, with the dispensation dwelling on the need for a robust and meaningful Look East Policy (LEP) so that the country’s long-underrated hinterland charts out a new and holistic development trajectory. Fortutely, the Sarbanda Sonowal government too seems to have appreciated the need for translating LEP into a people-centric and region-oriented policy so as to propel the region towards new heights of development stemming from tangible engagements with Southeast Asia, the emphasis being on people-to-people contact as well, with tourism – of which there is no dearth of potential in India’s Northeast – being an added focus. Well, this being the optimism of the day, the question, nonetheless, remains as to whether the political leadership in question, with of course the bureaucracy in general being a laggard as usual, is even warming up to the imperatives of a meaningful and sustaible LEP by way of identifying some key areas that have to be necessarily worked upon in order to make LEP a meaningful policy framework.